aren't clear to me. If you were in politics, I, as a party
journalist, wouldn't trust you further than I could see you. Not
an inch further. You are such a sophisticated beggar. Listen:
the man is the man Miss Moorsom was engaged to for a year. He
couldn't have been a nobody, anyhow. But he doesn't seem to have
been very wise. Hard luck for the young lady."

He spoke with feeling. It was clear that what he had to tell
appealed to his sentiment. Yet, as an experienced man of the
world, he marked his amused wonder. Young man of good family and
connections, going everywhere, yet not merely a man about town, but
with a foot in the two big F's.

Renouard lounging aimlessly in the room turned round: "And what
the devil's that?" he asked faintly.

"Why Fashion and Finance," explained the Editor. "That's how I
call it. There are the three R's at the bottom of the social
edifice and the two F's on the top. See?"

"Ha! Ha! Excellent! Ha! Ha!" Renouard laughed with stony eyes.

"And you proceed from one set to the other in this democratic age,"
the Editor went on with unperturbed complacency. "That is if you
are clever enough. The only danger is in being too clever. And I
think something of the sort happened here. That swell I am
speaking of got himself into a mess. Apparently a very ugly mess
of a financial character. You will understand that Willie did not
go into details with me. They were not imparted to him with very
great abundance either. But a bad mess--something of the criminal